Can a surviving spouse who has been taking RMD from a Traditional Inherited IRA transfer to her own IRA<

Submitted by Edward Schultz on Tue, 2014-11-11 20:24

Husband was age 83 and taking RMD when he died. Spouse was age 58 on date of death. IRA was titled as Traditional Inherited IRA and surviving spouse has been taking RMD based on Single Life Table.

She is now 68. Can she transfer from an Inherited IRA to her own IRA? If so, does she continue to use the Single Life Table?

Can she transfer to a Single Premium Immediate Annuity and satisfy the RMD requirement?

Thanks.

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Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Tue, 2014-11-11 22:28

Surviving spouse should have rolled this over to her own IRA after reaching 59.5 as that would have stopped her RMDs until she reached 70.5. She should still do the rollover now and her RMDs will be smaller than if she continued to maintain this as a beneficiary because the Uniform Table will apply. Her own designated beneficiaries will also get their own stretch once she passes, and they will not if they inherit an already inherited IRA after the beneficiary reaches 70.5. If she completes the rollover before 12/31 she will also “erase” this years RMD as a beneficiary unless she has already taken that distribution.
There is no reason to elect a SPIA annuity at this time, but is she does in connection with the rollover, the annual distribution from the IRA annuity will be deemed to satisfy her RMD from here on. She will also be deemed have moved her required beginning date to the date of the first annuity payment, therefore starting her RMDs 2 or 3 years early.
There is no harm done by having taken the last few years of RMDs if she needed that money either way for her expenses. But if she did not need that money, rolling this over back when she reached 59.5 would have stopped her beneficiary RMDs.